Step! Step! Step….
The sound of someone's footsteps could be heard coming from the floor. When you hear the sound of these footsteps, then you will know that the person was running as hard as she could.
That person was a former nanny from an orphanage.
When you saw her, I'm sure you would be very annoyed. You would be annoyed by her behavior.
Because she was a nanny who was supposed to take care of the children at the orphanage, but instead she sold the children at the orphanage to Pavlova, the slave trader.
She had been running without regret after leaving the children.
Every single step she took, a single sound she produced. The sound produced by her appeared and hit the surroundings of the place she was in. The sound swirled and bounced in the air because the place she was in was quite narrow.
The place where she was running was a culvert. Next to her was a stream where all the garbage from Burgenfield city gathered and flowed.
The width of the culvert was only about two to three meters and the height of the ceiling was not much different. It was probably only about three to four meters high.
Although she did not have to bend over while inside the culvert, the distance of her head from the ceiling of the culvert was not too far.
She ran until the sweat on her head was drenched in sweat.
While running, she was carrying a chest box in her arms. She embraced the chest box with all her might. The size of the chest box could be said to be small because she could embrace the chest box and carry it while running. The reason why she was sweating profusely was also because she was running while carrying the chest box.
You might have guessed that inside the chest box was all the money she had collected. You're right if you guessed so.
It was all the money she took from mortgaging the orphanage, the accumulated money given by Jeanne over the years, along with the money she borrowed from slave traders.
The total amount of money that she kept in the chest box was not a small amount, it was almost equal to the entire treasury of a medium-sized criminal organization. The small size of the chest box did not reflect the amount of value of the money stored. Because the coins stored in the chest box were a collection of gold coins.
Her happy face couldn't escape as she ran. Even though she was exhausted, she was still happy because her mind was busy imagining all the things she could do with the money in her hand.
However, when she felt she had run far enough, she stopped for a while.
She looked back, in the direction from which she had come. Since she had just left the orphanage, naturally the place where she came from was the orphanage.
"Is it over already?"
In this dark, silent and smelly culvert, she muttered under her breath. Since there was no one else here, she was talking to herself. She wondered if the chaos in the orphanage was over.
This culvert path that she passed through was a path that she kept special without the knowledge of others. In other words, a secret escape route.
Earlier, when she saw the group of slave traders, she took the chest box containing the money and went straight to the entrance of the culvert she had hidden.
"Hehe, I didn't expect them to do it so rudely."
As she ran away from the orphanage, she could hear the sounds of commotion indistinctly. She could hear the screams and cries of the children in the orphanage at a glance. But she ignored all of that.
"All of you are finished! You annoying children. I've suffered enough from taking care of you so far."
The cursed word came out of her mouth without restraint.
It seemed that she had misunderstood. She thought that all the commotion she had heard was just the slave trader's men playing with children. Her mind imagined that those children were being mercilessly r*ped.
She didn't know that the orphanage had collapsed. In fact, if she had any brains, she should have been able to guess that the orphanage had collapsed. Because even the hidden path that she passed through had trembled violently a moment ago as if there had been an earthquake.
"Time to move on."
She got up and continued running again.
This time there was only silence. The sound of the soles of her feet and the sound of the murky water flowing against each other.
The destination she wanted to reach was the door leading out of the culvert.
A few moments after she ran, she saw a ladder that led to a round metal door in the ceiling. That was the way to the top. She had already marked the spot, so, despite the many turns in the road, she managed to get to where she needed to go.
The reason why she chose that exit was because outside the door it was safe to escape. Behind that exit was a poor people's district with many abandoned buildings.
Without much ado, she quickly climbed the ladder, opened the round metal door, and quickly exited the culvert.
At least, that's what she wanted to do, but...
"Eh? Why can't it open?"
De-dug! De-dug! De-dug!
She kept trying to push open the round metal door that should be very easy to open.
Previously, she had prayed the bolts off the round metal door so that it could be opened and closed at will.
However, as if her efforts were in vain, the door would not open.
She began to panic. Cold sweat began to break out all over her body, mixing with the normal sweat that came out of her pores. Her hands began to shake violently.
Negative thoughts began to creep into her head, taking away all the happy imaginations she had previously envisioned.
'What will happen to me if this goes on?'
If it continues like this, she'll die like a rat caught in a trap.
'Damn! I haven't had a chance to taste the money I saved. Am I going to die like this?'
She stopped her hand from trying to open the round metal door. She instead started grabbing her hair like a madwoman.
She could have gotten out, but she had to go through another exit. The nearest other exit was connected to the major roads in Burgenfield city. If she exited through there, it would be the end for her.
Just imagine if she came out of a culvert in the middle of a major highway. She would automatically become a spectacle to the citizens. And if the news of her whereabouts was heard by the slave trader, her history would be over.
What's more, the other exits were definitely locked.
Perhaps she would really go crazy if she continued to be trapped in the culvert.
After all, she already had a lot of money waiting to be spent.
'I have to get out of here, escape this kingdom, and live in luxury in another kingdom.'
With enough money, she could hire a top-ranked Adventure, bribe the corrupt soldiers at the kingdom's borders, and safely leave the kingdom of Misonia.
However, all of that was just distant wishful thinking if she couldn't get out of the hole she had dug herself into. Even the rats would laugh if they saw the state she was in.
Once again, she struggled to open the round iron door. She struggled desperately trying to open the iron door until her hands bled. And finally...
"Eh? Opened?"
Creaaakk... Boom!
As if she had just received a miracle, the door that she had been trying to open half to death suddenly opened.
"Peek-a-boo!"
"Eh?"
However, she did not expect that the door opened not because of her efforts, but because of someone who had just opened the door from outside.
The person who opened the door was a young boy around the age of sweet seventeen.
When she saw the face of the young boy who opened the door, she was almost hypnotized by his appearance.
Thus, she ignored all the irregularities surrounding the situation. And she even thought that the young boy had accidentally come and found her.
"Haha. Thank you, boy. Did you come here to help me?"
"Hm? Are you crazy?"
With that response from the young boy, she finally realized the situation she was in.
"Eh? H-how did you find this place?"
"Well, it wasn't hard to find this place. Your footsteps sound really loud, you know!"
"What? So-"
"Yes, I'm holding the exit for you to struggle through. Sorry about that. Regardless, I was able to easily find this place thanks to the existence of the magic barrier covering the entrance to this culvert. Isn't it quite suspicious when you see an entrance to a culvert covered with a magic barrier?"
Yes, she had spent quite a bit of money to buy a Magic Scroll - Barrier, so that her escape route was safe from ordinary people.
Using his keen sense of hearing, the young boy could easily find this place, because he was a Mesties. By using Hear of Everything, the sound of her footsteps, and the sound of the mana flow from the barrier would be clearly heard.
"If I look around, you must have tried very hard to keep the entrance to this culvert very hidden."
Hup!
The Mesties jumped into the culvert where the nanny was.
'This place is indeed similar to the sewage dumps of old.' Mesties thought as he looked around the contents of the culvert.
"Well, let's get our business done."
He smiled looking at the nanny attached to the stairs leading out.